


Family Abides

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Marriage, Mention of harm to children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-02-04 08:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: Tywin Lannister died soon after his younger son’s birth. Many years later, over dinner with his family, Jaime Lannister, Lord of the Rock, reflected on how Tywin’s death changed everything. Rebellion, kingslaying, marriage, power – Jaime has seen it all.





	Family Abides

**Author's Note:**

> Lady_in_Red pitched the idea: what if Tywin had died instead of Joanna? I followed that thought to its logical conclusion: Lannister family fluff (and a smidgen of angst). I own nothing.

Tyrion gestured to the visiting bard discreetly. Or so he would have claimed, but both he and Jaime knew Tyrion was never discreet in his teasing.

Familiar chords flew from the bard’s harp and filled one of the lesser halls at Casterly Rock, where the Lord of the Rock dined with his family, beyond the sight and bothersome petitions and flattery of bannermen and other visitors. These private family dinners were a recent tradition, instituted for the comfort of the Lion of Lannister’s young wife. Though she’d been Lady of the Rock for well night six years already, the tall, shy, famously ugly Stormlander preferred to keep away from unkind eyes and even unkinder words, and her husband liked to indulge her.

Truth be told, Jaime often woke wondering whether he should not have run away to live out his days as a sellsword in Essos. The odd evening spent alone with his family helped soothe his suspicion that his father, dead these many years, would have looked upon Jaime’s tenure as Lord of the Rock with a frown of profound disapproval. Despite Jaime’s and his mother’s role in the rebellion which had ended the Mad King’s rule and brought the sensible, cautious Rhaegar Targaryen to the throne. Despite the many years of peace and prosperity which Rhaegar and his Hand Jon Arryn had brought to the realm. Jaime ruled the Rock, stewing in boredom, but at least the cries of children filled his halls, and he had his brother and wife by his side.

His wife groaned quietly as _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ echoed around the hall. Tyrion kept time with his fork, not even trying to hide his grin. An old jest, worn thin long ago. 

At least the children could be relied upon to make their feelings plain. 

“No!” dark-eyed Amaranta exclaimed, all of two-and-ten and convinced she was the lady of the house (an illusion Brienne not so secretly nurtured). 

“Not that song again!” Dorea Sand protested, overlapping. Jaime’s niece and ward was forbidden from bringing her morningstar to meals, but she clutched her fruit knife as though she meant to twirl it around her head and launch it at the bard. 

“Tyrion, really,” Zia scolded her husband softly. 

Most lords of the West and the Riverlands had thrust their younger daughters in Tyrion’s path at one time or another, calculating that a kin connection to House Lannister outweighed the shame of marrying a daughter to a dwarf, but also hedging their bets. Plain like all her kin, Zia Frey had caught Tyrion’s eye when she’d shown him that she understood how the weight of people’s judging eyes could be borne in silence or worn as a kind of armor. Walder Frey’s granddaughter by his fourth son, one of many Freys and knowing herself expendable as such, Zia had looked Tyrion in the eye when conversing, ceded no ground to his jests, and shown a calm sort of kindness. She sat now by her husband’s side, shaking her head in fond disapproval, one hand resting on her bulging belly. 

Only little Galladon clapped his hands in delight. “The Wed and Bwue Knights’ song!” he shrilled. 

While Jaime signaled for the bard to leave, Tyrion widened his mismatched eyes at his wife, brother, goodsister, niece, nephew, and his brother’s ward. Pairs of eyes green and blue and brown stared back, topped by hair ranging from darkest night to palest gold. 

“I am shocked,” Tyrion intoned, his lips still twitching with mischief. “Shocked, I tell you, that the youngest person at this table is the only one who appreciates my fine taste in music.” He paused for effect while everyone save Galladon rolled their eyes, shook their heads, or huffed in annoyance. “As well as my fine taste in stories,” Tyrion added slyly. 

“Stowy!” Galladon crowed. “Yes, please, nuncle! Tell the stowy about the Wed and Bwue Knights and the beaw.”

Brienne rested her elbow on the table and hid her eyes behind her palm. “Oh no,” she breathed. 

Jaime patted her knee, resigned. Tyrion would have his little jokes. It was the price Jaime paid for loving his brother and depriving him of being Lord of the Rock by having been born first. 

His hand still on his wife’s knee, Jaime leaned close enough that only Brienne could hear him. “As soon as the harvest is done, we’ll steal away for a moon or so. There’s word of a tournament in Pinkmaiden, which will be sorely lacking in mystery knights unless the Red and Blue Knights enter the lists. We’ll be there and back before Amaranta’s nameday, just in time to deal with the latest round of the Blackwood-Bracken feud over which House gets to foster Amaranta and throw their sons in her path.” 

Brienne uncovered her eyes and looked at Jaime, her cheeks pink and her gaze soft. At moments like these, Jaime was certain that, but for the stroke of inspiration which had made him promise to Brienne that they would steal away at least once a year and roam the land as nameless hedge knights – as Duncan the Tall and Prince Aegon had once done – Brienne would have remained adamant in thinking he meant only to use her for sport and refusing his proposal. 

Six years after burying Elia, Jaime had toured the Seven Kingdoms on King Rhaegar’s behalf, ensuring no plots were being hatched against the man Jaime had helped put on the throne. 

He had arrived on the island of Tarth expecting to be bored out of his skull. He had not expected to find the Lord of Tarth’s only daughter in the jousting yard, dressed in boiled leather and thrashing a knight even taller than she with a practice sword. Nor had Jaime expected her blue eyes and kind heart to make him reconsider his stance on taking a second wife as a betrayal of Elia’s memory. 

Apart from their warmth and gentleness, Elia and Brienne were as unlike as the noonday sun and the full moon. Elia had been ten years his senior, a woman grown when Jaime had married her soon after the rebellion of which he had been the figurehead when still a lad. 

Raising an imagined toast to the smiling Elia of his memory, Jaime reflected, not for the first time, that he had learned how to be a man from the women in his life: his mother, who may have killed a king; his first wife, who had married a boy and raised up a man as well as raising their children and Jaime’s younger brother alike; and his second wife, who never let him shirk his duties, even if she enjoyed running away to wander and fight in tourneys every bit as much as he did. Brienne had given birth to Galladon barely seven moons after one of those little quests, during which she’d won no fewer than three melees and bedded down with Jaime in many a roadside inn. 

“What if Tytos competes at Pinkmaiden?” Brienne whispered, wanting to accept Jaime’s promise yet always so cautious. “He would be horribly embarrassed.”

“My son is a man grown and heir to the Rock, indulging himself with tournaments without a care or obligation in the world,” Jaime groused. “If recognizing us as mystery knights at a provincial tournament is too much for him, then so be it. It might hasten his and Daenna’s growing up.” 

Jaime’s two eldest children had never warmed to Brienne, being too close to her in age and too jealous of their pride as Lannisters and their heritage as Martells. Life at Casterly Rock had become considerably easier since Tytos had taken up playing at being a knight errant and Daenna had settled into her own life as the young mistress of Highgarden. 

Brienne covered Jaime’s hand, resting still on her knee, with her own broad, freckled hand. She knew well how much Jaime had wished not to become the stern, forbidding father to his children that he remembered his own father having been to him. Yet more and more often as he grew older and his children grew up, Jaime had heard Tywin’s own voice issuing from his mouth. It scarcely bore thinking what Tywin would have made of Jaime and Cersei and Tyrion, of Jaime’s children and Brienne, had he not died of a sudden apoplexy soon after Tyrion’s birth. 

Amaranta tugged on Brienne’s skirts (Jaime’s wife preferred breeches yet insisted the lady of the house ought to wear a dress at dinner, as though it were a penance). She had tried to attract Brienne’s attention as a lady should, with polite little coughs, but her parents had been too engrossed in their conversation to notice, and she had grown impatient. 

“Momma, please stop Uncle Tyrion,” Amaranta whined when Brienne turned to her. “He’s telling _that story_ again.”

Jaime looked across the table to where Galladon gazed at his uncle raptly from under a fall of unruly pale hair, while Tyrion raised his stubby arms above his head, short fingers hooked into claws. On Tyrion’s other side, Zia caught Jaime’s eye and rolled her eyes with a helpless smile. 

“When the Blue Knight saw his companion’s predicament,” Tyrion intoned, waving his clawed arms, “faced with the biggest black bear you ever did see, the Blue Knight did the only thing he could. He ripped off his clothes, lest they impede him in the fight or give him undue advantage, since the Red Knight had been ambushed while bathing in the river, and…”

Brienne’s high-pitched squeak of outrage spiked then broke in half when Jaime slid his hand up her thigh and pinched her through her skirts and petticoats.

“Tyrion.” Jaime kept his voice quiet.

Tyrion stopped mid-sentence. When he turned to face his brother, his smile was almost sheepish. 

Jaime raised his eyebrows, aware without turning to look that Brienne was red as a ripe cherry beside him. He kept his hand on her thigh, fingers loose. “The Blue Knight,” Jaime said firmly, addressing first Tyrion and then, with a smile, his young son, still rapt in the story, “the Blue Knight kept all her… his clothes on as he ventured forth to fight that bear which menaced the Red Knight.”

“Did the Bwue Knight kiw it?” Galladon breathed, as though he hadn’t heard the story a dozen times already. Dorea and Amaranta sighed loudly to each other.

“No.” Jaime shot the two girls a warning look. Dorea made a face, but they were listening to him tell the story. “No, the Blue Knight panicked and forgot he had a sword. Instead, the Blue Knight jumped up and down like a very bad mummer, waved his arms around a lot, and threw clods of earth at the bear. Eventually the bear decided attempting to eat the Red Knight in such conditions was too much trouble and ambled away on its own.”

Brienne’s exhalation was loud as the first gust of storm winds across the Sunset Sea. “I am certain the Blue Knight did the best s… he could in the moment. He never would have allowed the Red Knight to be eaten.” 

Jaime captured her hand under the table, brought it out into plain view of everyone, and kissed it. Brienne’s nostrils flared but her fist relaxed between Jaime’s fingers so he could turn her hand over and kiss her palm as well. Amaranta sighed in romantic bliss, while Dorea mimed gagging. 

“So the beaw went hungwy,” Galladon complained. His gentle-hearted mother’s son through and through, he was getting teary at the thought and looking at his half-eaten dinner as though hoping he might share it with some passing bear. 

“Oh, I’m sure it found some other knight to eat,” Tyrion replied airily, signaling a servant for more wine despite his wife’s quiet protests. 

“If I had been there, I’d have killed that bear!” Dorea declared fiercely. 

Galladon’s plump lower lip trembled. Jaime leaned past his wife and daughter, and looked his ward square in the eye. 

“If you had been there, you would have needed only to look at it as you are looking at me now, Dorea. The bear would have fainted of fright, and everyone would have escaped unscathed.”

Dorea lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at Jaime. Oberyn Martell had agreed to have one of his youngest fostered at Casterly Rock only under the condition that Dorea not be coddled. Jaime had plenty of experience, with his own children, treading the fine line between firmness and encouraging a child to flourish. It helped that Dorea had latched onto Brienne as soon as she’d arrived, following her to the jousting yard and emulating Brienne’s kindness almost as often as she emulated Brienne’s courage and steadfastness. 

Jaime waggled his eyebrows at Dorea. Dorea glared at him a moment longer before she dissolved into helpless giggles with Amaranta. 

Brienne leaned across the table and addressed Galladon in what Jaime liked to call her septa voice, much to her annoyance.

“Bears are only nice at a distance,” she told Galladon, who listened as raptly as he’d listened to Tyrion’s story. Brienne jerked her chin at Galladon’s plate, and the boy picked up his fork reluctantly and shoveled a few peas and a single slice of carrot into his mouth. “Up close, they are dangerous and very, very scary.”

“This is true,” Tyrion agreed thoughtfully. “Even our king thinks so, which makes the scariness of bears practically the law of the land.”

When the Lannisters had paid a visit to King’s Landing half a year past, King Rhaegar had taken great pleasure in joining Tyrion in teasing Jaime and Brienne for their exploits as the mystery knights dressed in red and blue. Jaime had found the spectacle of the somber king helping Tyrion tell Galladon mischievous stories about his parents downright alarming. The king’s Tully wife had seemed to share Jaime’s bemusement. 

“King Rhaegar has no cause to fear bears,” Brienne declared with dogged loyalty. She scowled at her plate, troubled at having to say as much after she’d just warned Galladon about bears, and clarified: “He has armor and a sword and sworn knights to protect him.”

“The only thing which scares our king,” remarked Tyrion dryly, “is our sister.”

A moment of blessed silence reigned around the table. Then Amaranta piped up: “But Aunt Cersei _is_ scary!”

“You should have seen her in her youth, when she thought she could be queen,” Jaime muttered into his wine cup. “I swear Rhaegar twitched like a motherless fawn every time he was within Cersei’s line of sight. I never saw him smile so brightly as the morning after Cersei departed for Storm’s End.”

Brienne frowned at her husband and goodbrother, motioned for more food to be served and the wine to be taken away. Even at the Lannisters’ famously relaxed family dinners, such talk edged too close to treason for her liking.

When Tywin Lannister had died an untimely death, his brothers had proved unable or unwilling to protect his young widow. Tygett Lannister had been killed trying to prevent Joanna Lannister’s forcible move to King’s Landing, where King Aerys kept her and her daughter as hostages while sending her older son to squire for House Velaryon. Jaime had just turned three-and-ten when rumors reached him that his mother was big with the king’s bastard, her face perennially swollen with scratches and bruises, and all the court commanded to treat her as the true queen while Aerys shunned his sister-wife and trueborn sons. 

When Rhaegar had called his banners, Jaime had persuaded the Velaryons and many other Crownlands houses to join the son against the father. Then King Aerys had died in his sleep suddenly, and Rhaegar bought the smallfolk’s love by preventing a sack of King’s Landing. Jaime had found his mother, her belly round with child, comforting the hysterical Cersei and Rhaella, the queen’s cheeks scoured crimson by her own nails. Two days before his sudden and unexpected death, Aerys had cuffed their younger son Viserys, a boy of five, so his head had struck the wall. Viserys had complained to Rhaella of a headache, fallen asleep, and never woken. 

Brienne was watching Jaime closely, biting her lip, reluctant to intrude on the memories clouding his countenance. “I heard there was a raven from Storm’s End this morning…” she said softly. 

Jaime shook off memory like rainwater and smiled at his wife, his cheeks feeling tight. “Oh yes. Mother reports that Cersei is fighting with Stannis, his brothers, and her Stark goodsister, as usual. Cersei’s sons are growing into real savages, surprising no one but Cersei. Mother will be with us after Amaranta’s nameday, she wants to stop at court and spend some time with Rhaella first.”

Brienne laid a gentle hand on Jaime’s arm. “They have a bond,” she murmured. “What they went through…”

“What they did, you mean.” 

Jaime met Brienne’s wide blue eyes and bit back the bitter words which wanted out. Smothering a king in his sleep and daring the whole realm to accuse them of kingslaying must really bind people together, indeed! The only good thing Joanna had ever done was to kill the old madman, send Jaime away from Cersei before they could wreck their lives with childish fancies of love, and kill the child in her womb before it turned her and all Lannisters into Rhaegar’s enemies. That, and she’d married Cersei to the middle Baratheon brother to keep her away from court, where she would have kept throwing herself in Rhaegar’s way and stirring up trouble. And Joanna had resurrected Jaime’s betrothal to Elia Martell. And called Brienne Lady of the Rock when most lords’ wives in the West wouldn’t pay Brienne that courtesy. Yes, Joanna had done much good, but Brienne could not ask Jaime to love his mother. Joanna had loved her dead husband and her own pain and pride more than she’d ever loved Jaime or Tyrion or Cersei.

Because Brienne still looked troubled, Jaime leaned in close, closer, close enough to press his lips to hers, causing Tyrion to whistle and the children to set off another wave of unholy noise. Once Brienne had pointed out that kissing her in front of his bannermen and guests set a bad example, so Jaime retaliated by kissing her every time they had dinner only with family.

She was blushing pink when Jaime pulled back, just far enough to press his lips to her ear and whisper: “Perhaps after Pinkmaiden we can stay on the road a while longer, see if there are any tourneys east of the Twins. Let mother deal with the children and Tyrion on her own, for a change. We’ll send a raven every moon or so, just so they know no bears have eaten us yet, and…”

But Brienne was shaking her head. “Zia’s babe is due very soon,” she pointed out, her tone wistful. “And my father will be writing again any moon now to insist we send him Galladon for fostering.”

She blinked away tears hastily, and Jaime kissed her warm cheek. For once, everyone was too busy with their own conversations and the food to notice. 

“No fostering will happen for a good while yet, and not as long as your father keeps inviting the female population of Essos to visit Tarth one at a time. A Lannister always keeps his promises, and I did promise you that much. As for Zia’s babe…” 

Jaime glanced over at his brother and goodsister. Zia laughed at something Tyrion said, but then she put on a very stern face and shook her head. The width of Tyrion’s smile did not lessen. 

“Zia has enough practice dealing with my brother to bear ten babes and lose no sleep. But alas, I fear you are right, Brienne. If the Red and Blue Knights should prolong their journeys, no doubt the Rock would sink into the sea, some Clegane or Spicer would declare himself Warden of the West, and dragons would come back to put the wind up our king.”

“Jaime…” Brienne huffed.

Jaime lifted his hands in surrender. “Am I not allowed to dream?” he sighed dramatically. 

Brienne fought with her bashfulness for only a moment before she threw her arms around Jaime and pulled him into a crushing hug, only slightly impeded by the distance between their two chairs. This time, Tyrion’s whistle and the children’s cries of outrage were loud enough to wake the Reynes in their watery graves.

“In my dreams, we wander the roads from tourney to tourney forever,” Brienne whispered fiercely in Jaime’s ear. “But waking is always too sweet to regret it is not real.” 

Directly in Jaime’s line of sight, a young servant stared resolutely up at the ceiling, a wine jug clutched in his white-knuckled hands as he attempted not to see his lord and lady embracing over dinner. Galladon’s pale head passed before the servant: the boy had left his seat and was heading over to climb into Jaime or Brienne’s lap, as he often did when feeling neglected. Jaime sometimes scolded Galladon for it, yet never refused the boy. 

In the few precious moments before their son interrupted them, Jaime whispered back to his wife: “I only ever wanted to fight, not rule the bloody Rock. But I won’t complain too loudly, Brienne. I have little cause for complaint.” 

Brienne laughed softly, wetly before she extricated herself, wiping her nose and eyes on her sleeve, to attend to Galladon’s demand to be taken on his mother’s lap, Dorea’s demand for cake despite the peas and carrots still on her plate, and Amaranta’s plea to bring back the bard and have him sing _Six Maids in a Pool_.

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this divergence is roughly as follows (including details which didn’t make it into the fic):
> 
> 256 AC – Elia Martell is born.
> 
> 259 AC – Rhaegar Targaryen is born.
> 
> 264 AC – Catelyn Tully is born.
> 
> 266 AC – Jaime and Cersei Lannister are born.
> 
> 273 AC – Tyrion Lannister is born. Tywin Lannister dies of a stroke – while relieving himself in the privy. Aerys Targaryen forces Joanna Lannister and the twins to move to King’s Landing, keeps Joanna and Cersei there while sending Jaime to Driftmark as a squire.
> 
> 274 AC – Willas Tyrell and Viserys Targaryen are born.
> 
> 275-277 AC – Joanna secretly aborts at least two unwanted pregnancies by Aerys.
> 
> 279 AC – Aerys discovers Joanna is pregnant again, starts calling her wife in public while neglecting his true wife Rhaella. Rhaegar calls his banners with Jaime’s aid. Aerys kills Viserys, is killed in his sleep by Joanna and Rhaella, with Varys’ aid. Joanna aborts again. Rhaegar becomes king and knights Jaime.
> 
> 280 AC – Rhaegar marries Catelyn Tully – they eventually have four children. Cersei marries Stannis Baratheon, they have two sons, and fight constantly. Robert Baratheon marries Lyanna Stark. Brienne of Tarth is born.
> 
> 281 AC – Jaime marries Elia Martell.
> 
> 283 AC – Tytos Lannister is born. (In canon, this is the year when Robert’s Rebellion ends in Rhaegar’s death in battle, Jaime’s murder of Aerys, and Robert Baratheon becoming king.)
> 
> 285 AC – Zia Frey is born.
> 
> 289 AC – Daenna Lannister is born.
> 
> 292 AC – Dorea Sand is born to Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand.
> 
> 294 AC – Amaranta Lannister is born, and Elia dies soon after.
> 
> 300 AC – Jaime meets and marries Brienne while touring the Seven Kingdoms on Rhaegar’s behalf.
> 
> 301 AC – The Red and Blue Knights make their first appearance at a tourney in Riverrun to celebrate Edmure Tully’s wedding – to a Frey, of course. 
> 
> 302 AC – Galladon Lannister is born, securing an heir for Tarth. Dorea arrives in Casterly Rock for fostering.
> 
> 303 AC – Tyrion marries Zia Frey. Tytos takes up the life of a knight errant, refuses to let Jaime arrange his marriage.
> 
> 305 AC – Daenna marries Willas Tyrell and bears him a son.
> 
> 306 AC – This fic takes place.


End file.
